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- Title
THE SKEPTIC AND THE MADMAN: THE PROTO-PRAGMATISM OF THOMAS REID.
- Authors
Lundestad, Erik
- Abstract
Even though the philosophy of common sense is not justifiable as such, the assumption upon which it rests, namely that there are things which we are not in position to doubt is correct. The reason why Thomas Reid was unable to bring this assumption out in a justifiable manner is that his views, both on knowledge and nature, are to be considered dogmatic. American pragmatists such as Charles Sanders Peirce and John Dewey on the other hand, may be seen as offering us a 'critical' and post-Darwinian philosophy of common sense. Today the philosophy of common sense is met with suspicion. In my view, this suspicion is legitimate. I believe, however, that the philosophy of common sense sprang from a novel insight into what philosophy could and should be - an insight that is basically correct. In the following I will bring out, not only what I believe this insight to be, but also the reasons as to why Thomas Reid himself proved unable to express it in a manner justifiable today. What I intend to show, in short, is that the philosophy of common sense is 'proto-pragmatic'. This does not only imply that it 'inspired' pragmatism, but that pragmatism liberated its basic insight from a set of premises which we are no longer prepared to accept, thereby making it justifiable today. If this is correct, the basic insight of the philosophy of common sense lives on, not in its original form, but in a pragmatic form.
- Publication
Journal of Scottish Philosophy, 2006, Vol 4, Issue 2, p125
- ISSN
1479-6651
- Publication type
Academic Journal
- DOI
10.3366/jsp.2006.4.2.125